Wednesday, October 9, 2013

This is the first short story I ever wrote, the one that kick-started all the others....

There was once a universe unto itself.

There was emptiness, and then there was light. The light spread through the universe
like wildfire, a curtain of energy flowing through the void. Seeping into everything, giving it life.

I

Suns
were born and planets formed. In this cold, dark space, one small sun
gave Light to a small planet. As life became prevalent on the planet,
a species of Hominids became
rulers. These creatures were thinkers, they had large brains that
allowed them to construct complex thoughts and ideas. But for as
intellectual as they were, they were unaware of the light.

Even though the
light was everywhere and flowing through them, the only
time they were aware of the light was when it bounced off something. And even then, they
did not see the light, but rather the shades and hues within the light spectrum: Reds, Greens, Blues, and Yellows.

These colors both fascinated and scared the Hominids, they didn't
understand what they were seeing. They did not like that they could not
explain the world around them. They needed an explanation, they wanted
to know the "how" and "why." And so they Created stories to help explain
the world that they inhabited.

Blue was the color of the Water Creator, who was wise and deep, just
like the ocean. Red was the color of the Passion Creator, who was responsible
for Love and the blood that flowed through them. Yellow was the color of the Sun Creator, who
provided warmth. Green was the color of the Terra Creator, who made the plants and animals.

After a time, the Creators became central figures in the Hominids
lives and even began to take on the traits of the Hominids. The Creators
were now capable of love, but also hate. They could be giving, or
envious. These Hominids looked up to the Creators and desperately wanted
to be
more like them, to be Creators themselves.

As
the Hominids evolved more, they began to develop unique
personalities and found themselves attracted to
certain traits of the Creators. Some were drawn to the personality of
the Passion
Creator, while others found that the messages from the Terra Creator
resonated more. As the Hominids became drawn to certain Creators, their
focus
on life shifted. Those that looked up to the Passion Creator focused on
living life to the fullest and connecting to others. Those who looked up
to the Terra Creator in turn focused more on connecting to the land
they lived on and animals they shared it with.

It
was not long before 4 divisions were drawn and 4 separate
villages were erected, each designed after one of the main Creators.
Those who lived in each village taught their youth the messages they
thought were important, messages they learned from their
Creators. Despite these Hominids each belonging to a different village,
they
still understood the need for community, for unity. They still had
questions with no answers: "Who am I? Why am I here? What happens when I
die?" The Hominids tried to help each other. They offered different
perspectives to each other, pooling their knowledge in hopes of
understanding
the world and themselves better.

II

The
Hominids lived simple lives, they hunted with sharp sticks and gathered
fruit in their woven baskets. They walked everywhere and woke up each
day to a bright shining Sun. And after a period of time, their sun and
planet started to change, just as they were. Terra's closest light
source
erupted, shooting energy into the planet. Volcanoes erupted, the seas
boiled and the land shook. As the land masses drifted apart,
weather patterns changed, storms formed and their planet would never be
the
same. Each village was built upon a fault, and when the land broke
apart, the
villages became separated. The world as they knew it had ended.

Each
village became isolated from the rest, drifting out into an endless see
alone. Storms above their heads kept the light from reaching them and
their anxiety grew. They couldn't explain or understand why their world
shook, why
the seas boiled, and why they were separated from the rest of their
community. And
because they didn't know the answers to these questions, they Created
answers.

Only,
instead of pooling the knowledge of 4 communities with 4 perspectives,
they pooled the knowledge of one community with one perspective.
Focusing simply on one Creator and one focus in life, the Hominids
decided the other perspectives were not worth thinking about. Each
village stopped believing in the other Creators and the Hominids only
believed in their
one Creator that mirrored the values they already held.

Time
went on and although the Hominids were still isolated from each other,
they continued to evolve separately. They began to express themselves
through Creation. They Created dances, songs, drawings, architecture.
They were able to
Create ships and travel over the water. They began to slowly re-populate
the
planet and intermingle.

Problems soon arose. In the
time they spent apart, they each Created their own version of why they
had become separate and what the focus on life should be.

Seeing
that each village had it's own set of values, they each Created their
own customs and rituals that they viewed as normal. And so when they
came upon a Hominid who had a different set of customs and rituals, they
viewed the differences as wrong. Not different, but wrong.

For
as intellectual as they were, time had moved on so much that they had
no memory of when they were one, of when each different perspective only
added to the whole, and wasn't the whole itself. They argued
over who was right and who was wrong. Who’s Creator was
real and who’s Creator was made
up.

They
Created labels to keep them separate: camel-Jockey, nigger, whitey,
fundamentalist, war monger, tree-lover, health nut, hippie, fag,
socialist,
bible-thumper, asshole, dreamer, hater. It only took a few generations
before all the Hominids thought that the labels were real and accurate
ways to categorize each other.

The
divisions between them grew and they began Creating wars. Creating
weapons to destroy each other more effectively. They Created bombs
strong enough to Create holes in the planet.

These were turbulent times for the Hominids, they had to
address their lives. The elders in each society continued to teach the Hominids
what should be important to them. What they should value. What they should
believe and what they should judge. They had a set of standards. The Hominids
Created paper that meant more to them than the things they could trade it for. They collected it
because they were told it would make them happy. They were told to ignore their
feelings and emotions, to not think for themselves but to listen to others.

The rules were strict and caused the Hominids much pain.
While these rules helped to guide their exterior lives, they soon
became miserable on the inside. They were trying to avoid exterior conflict and
instead were faced with internal ones. They began to look at their lives, they
felt as if they weren’t living up to the Creators and felt guilty for being
less than perfect. They felt guilty for being Hominids and not Creators. All of the rules and judgments they
had to live and abide by kept them from simply being themselves. Kept them from
Creating, kept them from asking questions, and kept them from
following their hearts and just being who they were meant to be, themselves

III

And then one day someone asked "Why?" Many would be
surprised that this Hominid was not a philosopher. Not a preacher or scientist,
but a child. The youth began to question the rules that
had stood for so long to separate the Hominids.

Hominids
all over the planet began to change, and as they changed, so did the
traits of their Creators. Soon those who believed in the Passion Creator
were divided over how He would react to those who didn't believe in
him. The Hominids who believed in Forgiveness argued that the Passion
Creator would want them to love openly and not judge, while the Hominids
who still held onto their hate argued that the Passion Creator would
want the disbelievers dead. Similar debates began to crop up within each
of the major followings.

The
Hominids were going through amazing changes, they were understanding
how unique they were, not just as a community, but as individuals. They
were starting to see that the their Creators were nothing more than
mirror images of who
they were. And as more
and more Hominids realized that their Creators were just extensions of
who they were, the Creators began to disappear, and in their place, the
Hominids took control of their lives and their destiny.

And
so they began to listen to each other again. They stopped trying to
convert and instead wanted to learn. Despite the Hominids intelligence,
they were finally smart enough to know that they did not know
everything, and these unknowns were what united them once again. In a
world with different Creators, each rewarding it's followers with
paradise, there was no consequence to dieing. But living in a world
where no one knew what happened when they died, is what allowed the
Hominids to come together and work as one. To stop killing each other
and to build a better world.

They
were getting back to
the basic truths, forgetting the
things that the Elders had told them in exchange for a more realistic
view of the world they had Created for themselves. They were beginning
to understand that the different colors that had once served to separate
them were all coming from the same light source. That while they
appeared to be different and separate, the space between them was simply
an illusion and always had been. That the differences only helped to
create a whole.

And
this evolution came at an interesting time for the
Hominids, because their sun and planet were going through changes again.
They had only a short window in which to act, to come together once
again to face the unknown. To remember who they were and where they had
come from.

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

"He's taken everything from me!" My grandpa screamed in the middle of the night.

My ever-growing fear, that we would be robbed, was true on this night. Many nights I wondered when someone would come. Ever since I moved in with my grandpa in an attempt to help move him out, I've just been waiting. So when grandpa woke me up shouting, I knew we'd been robbed.
As I started to awaken, I wondered what would be gone. What did my grandpa have that was worth anything?

I knew he had photographs in some nice frames- he didn't care about the frames but the photographs meant the world to him.

"He took her. The bastard took her from me."

I sat him up in bed, trying to be a rock for him, "What's going on grandpa?"

"The sonofabitch has taken everything from me. He took my parents, my dogs, my Edna..." He trailed off in a fit of tears. I had never seen him like this before.

"He's taken everything from me. All of my loves. Every god-damn one of them. Taken by him. I've got nothing left."

It was another gray sky. There was a light mist in the air as the large pine-trees on the side of the highway slowly swayed back and forth. A large milky-white fog slowly started to make it's way across the highway, but almost seemed to sit and wait as well.

John shifted gears so his bike could climb the hill. He hit a bump which caused his son, who had been sleeping in one of those bicycle-high-chairs, stirred awake.

"Where are we, daddy?"
"We're getting closer, maybe by the end of today we'll be there."
"I have to go potty."
"...Okay."

John slowly stopped pedaling the let the bike coast to a stop. He could just barely see the fog, but he wasn't looking so much as listening.

Birds were chirping in the far distance...the wind howled lightly...but that was it.

John quietly dismounted the bike and helped his son, David, get to the ground. This must've been a routine they practiced many times because David was very quiet and patient as John continually kept looking around them.

David walked three steps away from John before pulling his pants down and peeing on the road.

A larger gust of wind came and started to blow some of the fog away. John looked a few feet further away from them and could now see a backpack on the ground, opened with some items spilling out.

John eyed the bag for a moment, licking his lower lip as he did another scan around them. As David finished peeing, John slowly walked over to the fallen bag and picked it up. As he did a few oranges fell out, a little old but still good. They made a soft thud when they hit the pavement, but it was loud enough to make John and David freeze in their spot while they waited...and waited...but nothing came. David walked back to the bike as John took one last look around.

He then hurriedly locked David into the child-seat and set off. He didn't bother looking over his shoulder. As he had moved from the backpack, he could make out the owner's arm, and didn't care to see the rest of the body.

They continued to ride on, hoping to make it to their cabin before nightfall....

Sensations and Thoughts

I like to think and feel to my max. I let myself fall into feelings and then fuel my writing from those places.
I write it out of my system so that it's not bundled up inside of me, so I like to go extreme.
My short stories are fueled by me going to message boards and getting pissed off with how dumb people act.
I write with mind of a man and live with the body of an animal